[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 149 (Thursday, October 15, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10474-S10476]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I know the hour is late and many are ready 
to end the week. I wish to say a few words tonight about the challenge 
we have with regard to Afghanistan and Pakistan and our strategy going 
forward.
  I spent some time in the last couple of weeks talking about the 
obligation we have in the Senate to have a full debate on these issues 
and not simply to point down Pennsylvania Avenue and say the White 
House has to do this or that or the President has to do this or that.
  It is important, I believe, that the President and his team have 
taken the kind of time they have to get the strategy right with regard 
to Afghanistan and Pakistan. But I believe the Congress has a role to 
play. If we simply fall into partisan corners with regard to our 
strategy in Afghanistan and dust off and reintroduce talking points 
from the war in Iraq, we will not get it right; we will get it wrong.
  I believe we have to listen to a lot of different points of view. The 
President has undertaken that kind of review, and we have to do that as 
well.
  Part of that is doing what we have already begun to do, which is to 
have a series of hearings.
  In the Foreign Relations Committee, we have had a number of hearings. 
I know the Presiding Officer, as a member of the Intelligence Committee 
and his work as a Senator, has engaged in this review as well. We are 
trying to get different points of view in front of us. I know Chairman 
Kerry and the Foreign Relations Committee have had too many hearings to 
count, and not just in the last couple of weeks but over many months.
  Chairman Levin and the Armed Services Committee have outlined a 
strategy, or at least an approach to part of a strategy, to focus on 
building up the Afghan National Army and the police on an accelerated 
basis so we can begin to move the responsibility more to the Afghan 
people and the Afghan governing institutions as opposed to having the 
United States and other coalition partners bear this responsibility 
solely. Chairman Levin has spent a good deal of time trying to 
contribute to this debate.
  We have heard both Democrats and Republicans contributing to this 
discussion. As much as we have heard

[[Page S10475]]

about General McChrystal's report and his recommendations--and we have 
heard a good bit about that, and we should, and we have heard an awful 
lot about his recommendation with regard to troop levels, almost 
exclusively, General McChrystal's recommendations about troops.
  If you read his report--the report that is now public--he talks at 
length in that report about every topic under that heading and does 
refer to troops, but he also talks about at least three areas. One, he 
talks about security. Obviously, as the commander, he should address 
that issue, and he does. But he also talks about governance and 
development. Those three areas are critically important. We can get the 
troop level right and get the whole strategy wrong. Even if we focus on 
security, which obviously involves troop levels and military 
determinations we have to make, we have to get it right with regard to 
development and also with regard to governance.
  I note for the record an article from--I do not have it in front of 
me, but I will refer to it. The New York Times on October 2 had a story 
about General McChrystal's approach to the strategy, but he was quoted 
in that story talking about debate and deliberation.
  I have been listening to some people who talked about what he is 
recommending. One would think all he did was put together a report, 
send it to Washington, and the report said ``add troops'' and that is 
all he had to say. General McChrystal--I am paraphrasing--did refer to 
both debate and deliberation to get the strategy right. He also said we 
do not have the luxury of moving too fast. I think that is instructive 
of what he has been recommending.
  I want to talk tonight briefly about one of those three areas, not 
security or development, but governance, and in particular talk for a 
moment about elections and other aspects of governance as well as the 
judiciary.
  I know the Senator from Rhode Island, the Presiding Officer, is a 
member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former prosecutor and 
understands how important the judiciary is to a functioning democracy. 
We have a ways to go and the Afghan people have a ways to go between 
here and there, meaning here where they are today and where they must 
get to with regard to their judiciary.
  In terms of the election, we heard a lot about the problems, and some 
of it bears repeating. As documented by the National Democratic 
Institute, the International Republican Institute, Democracy 
International, and a host of other international observers, the 
elections in Afghanistan saw widespread fraud amid an atmosphere of 
escalated violence. We saw many of these problems coming before the 
elections, and despite having years to prepare, there is still not a 
reliable voters list, which opened the possibility of wholesale fraud 
on election day. The ``single nontransferable vote system'' for the 
provincial government elections has led to candidates gaining seats 
with only a few actual votes. On election day, many citizens were too 
scared to vote, citing Taliban threats to bomb polling stations or 
literally cut fingers off of voters. Afghanistan itself can and should 
take several concrete steps or measures to address these issues prior 
to the next election, including fixing the voters list, considering 
moving away from the single nontransferable voter system, and enhancing 
the security environment for voters in the preelection period and on 
election day.

  I would add to this that when I was in Afghanistan and Pakistan back 
in August with Senator Brown and Congressman Zack Space, we had several 
briefings and one of them was on the election. One point that was made 
we shouldn't lose sight of. This election, for all the fraud that we 
know is on the record now, for all the problems, the security 
environment was generally good. The fact that despite those threats by 
the Taliban an election took place in a time of war and under an 
adverse, difficult security environment shouldn't be glossed over. It 
was a significant challenge. So we had a lot of fraud, but in terms of 
security there is some good news on the security front.
  Organized representation of any citizen's interests in Afghanistan 
also remains underdeveloped. The electoral system disincentivizes the 
development of vibrant party structures. This is problematic, because 
without political parties--it is hard for us to understand this is 
still a problem--without political parties that can help to organize 
and represent the policy concerns of the people, there is little hope 
that the Parliament's legislation can truly reflect the will of the 
Afghan people.
  Governing institutions in Afghanistan have atrophied over decades of 
civil war and Taliban rule and have begun to develop other problems as 
well, but institutional reform is vitally necessary. We know that the 
idea of a strong central government in the history of Afghanistan is 
somewhat of a foreign concept. In recent years, the international 
community has placed an emphasis on the development of governing 
institutions in Kabul, capable of projecting its presence and influence 
across the country, but it has been a difficult challenge. Not enough 
attention has been paid to the development of proper financing of local 
governing institutions. Provincial government is underfunded, and that 
opens the door to local level corruption.
  Local and international development nongovernmental organizations 
often take the lead in local development projects, which can serve to 
minimize the role of the provincial government at a time when we need 
their role to be strengthened in terms of what people see. So just at a 
time when you need strong evidence of local government, sometimes the 
NGOs are doing a lot of the work.
  While the international community has not paid enough attention to 
the development of local governing structures, the Taliban, 
unfortunately, understands the importance of connecting with the people 
at the local level. Over the past few years, the Taliban has 
established shadow governments across the south which mete out their 
form of Sharia justice. They have ombudsmen who travel from district to 
district to gauge the work of the Taliban shadow government and their 
officials. And of course we know that Mullah Omar, the former head of 
the Taliban-led government, now runs the so-called Quetta Shura--QST as 
it is known by its acronym--and they have produced a 30-page manual, 
believe it or not, on how best to win the favor of the local 
population.
  So the Taliban is not just thinking in military terms. They have 
already not just thought about but have begun to implement a governing 
strategy, and our government--our strategy--and also the Afghan people, 
as well as our coalition partners--have to think this through as well 
and get it right. It is important we get this right--the governing part 
of our challenge--as much as we get the military part of this right.
  The Afghan Government should make every effort to devolve power and 
resources to the local level to bring good governance as close to the 
people as possible. The provincial reconstruction teams can help and 
play a supporting role, but this essential connection between the 
Afghan citizen and government must be an Afghan-led enterprise.
  Let me conclude with this thought about the judiciary. The Taliban 
are threatened by a strong judiciary, as evidenced by its deadly attack 
on the Ministry of Justice in Kabul earlier this year. High levels of 
endemic corruption, insufficiently trained staff, and a complicated 
system of western, customary, and Sharia law hinders the Afghan 
Government's ability to provide justice for its people. This is perhaps 
the biggest threat to the Afghan Government's viability, the Taliban's 
ability to provide quick, albeit brutal, justice, which sharply 
contrasts with the corrupt government officials who are unwilling or 
unable to take action. So in the absence of a strong effort by the 
government to provide the kind of judiciary that we would hope they 
could provide, the Taliban has filled the void. Thus a majority of 
legal disputes are settled outside of the state's formal justice 
system. With little trust in the government, the population can easily 
turn to the Taliban for a swift, brutal form of justice.
  As we ramp up our efforts to train the Afghan National Police force, 
we must at the same time consider parallel reforms that must take place 
within the formal justice sector. We must support Afghan efforts toward 
institutional reform in the Ministry of Justice so that the local 
population

[[Page S10476]]

will not rely only upon the informal justice sector, or worse, turn in 
fact to the Taliban for justice.
  There has been noteworthy progress in some democratic institution 
building within the country. First, by way of example, the Ministries 
of Defense and Interior are often recognized for their positive 
efforts. And while considerable work remains to be done, each has made 
significant strides in recent years. I can say from somewhat of a 
firsthand observation that both Defense Minister Wardal and Interior 
Minister Akmar, two ministers we met with on our trip in August and sat 
down with, indicated to me they have a strong sense of where they have 
to go to develop the Afghan army and police force, the security for the 
country. But they still have to demonstrate that over time. No matter 
who ultimately wins the Presidential election, I hope that the Afghan 
Government will retain these important ministers, who have the 
institutional knowledge of success and of clear plans for continued 
development.
  Second, the health sector, in particular, has seen impressive gains 
since the fall of the Taliban government. Today, in Afghanistan, 82 
percent of the population lives in districts with access to a 
government-provided health care package, up from 9 percent in 2003. 
That is a bit of good news we don't often hear about, but I am sure 
there is progress yet to be made there as well in terms of health care.
  Third, the education sector has seen improvements as well. In 2001, 
less than 1 million children--probably about 10 percent of the school-
aged population--were enrolled in elementary or secondary education, 
and almost none of them were girls at that time. Today, more than 6 
million children are enrolled, 2 million of whom are girls. So there 
has been measurable and significant progress in Afghanistan despite the 
recent deteriorating security environment.
  Building on these fragile gains will rest in large part on the 
viability of the Afghan democratic institutions. The United States can 
help in this effort through the continued provision of development 
assistance and other forms of diplomatic and political support for 
Afghanistan's institutions. While the security situation is 
increasingly grave, between 79 and 91 percent of the population remains 
opposed to the Taliban and their brand of violent politics and their 
brand of justice. I hope we can consolidate on the gains made in 
Afghanistan and seriously begin to address the severe shortcomings that 
remain in the democratic development of the country.
  In conclusion, I would say that despite all the bad news about the 
security environment, which is news we need to hear, we need to put it 
in the context of the two other challenges beyond security--governance 
and development. I have pointed out some real problems with the 
governance, especially as it relates to the judiciary, but we have had 
some progress on health and on education. We need to accelerate and 
develop that and incentivize it and get it right, but we have seen some 
good news.
  So I think as we debate this strategy going forward, those of us in 
the Senate who have a role to play here and who feel the obligation to 
get this right have to focus on more than just security and troops and 
the military. We have to make sure that we get strategies in place to 
enhance and increase the governance priority as well as development. We 
will talk more at another time about development.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

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